We have powers under the Civil Aviation Act 2012 for the economic regulation of operators of airports in the UK that pass a market power test. In January 2014, we published our findings that Heathrow and Gatwick met the market power test. We found that Stansted did not meet the test for services to either passenger and cargo airlines.

Further information on our market power assessments is on the following page:

Q6 licence and airport price control review

Since we started price regulating airports in 1986, we have completed six five-yearly (quinquennial) reviews. The latest review (for Q6) started in June 2011 and was completed in February 2014. Q6 started on 1 April 2014 for both Heathrow and Gatwick, and will run until 31 December 2018 for Heathrow and until 31 March 2021 for Gatwick. Our work on the current review including price control and other licence conditions is below.

Consultant reports were commissioned by us, airports and other stakeholders during the review.

Passenger research

We commissioned the following research to provide evidence and inform a number of work streams surrounding passenger research and information use. Qualitative research consisting of a number of focus group discussions informed the quantitative section of work, where over 2,200 people were surveyed using both standard and stated preference surveys. The report and annexes here show the results of the research (December 2011).